Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Forum emphasizes BRI cooperation between China and Arab countries
Rights to lower sleeper berths should be softened by empathy for fellow passengers
Sunday
- Subscribe
Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Transplant policy must be for the real world
By Peter Singer |
August 20, 2009, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE arrest in New York last month of Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, a Brooklyn businessman whom police allege tried to broker a deal to buy a kidney for US$160,000, coincided with the passage of a law in Singapore that some say will open the way for organ trading there.
Last year, Singapore retail magnate Tang Wee Sung was sentenced to one day in jail for agreeing to buy a kidney illegally. He subsequently received a kidney from the body of an executed murderer - which, though legal, is arguably more ethically dubious than buying a kidney, since it creates an incentive for convicting and executing those accused of capital crimes.
Now, Singapore has legalized payments to organ donors. Officially, these payments are only for reimbursement of costs; payment of an amount that is an "undue inducement" remains prohibited. But what constitutes "undue inducement" is left vague.
Both these developments raise again the question as to whether selling organs should be a crime at all. In the United States alone, 100,000 people seek an organ transplant each year, but only 23,000 are successful. Some 6,000 people die before receiving an organ.
Although buying and selling human organs is illegal almost everywhere, the World Health Organization estimates that worldwide about 10 percent of all kidneys transplanted are bought on the black market. The most common objection to organ trading is that it exploits the poor. That view received support from a 2002 study of 350 Indians who illegally sold a kidney.
Most told researchers they were motivated by a desire to pay off their debts but, six years later, three-quarters of them were still in debt, and regretted having sold their kidney.
Some free-market advocates reject the view that government should decide for individuals what body parts they can sell - hair, for instance, and in the US, sperm and eggs - and what they cannot sell.
When the television program "Taboo" covered the sale of body parts, it showed a slum dweller in Manila who sold his kidney so that he could buy a motorized tricycle taxi to provide income for his family. After the operation, the donor was shown driving around in his shiny new taxi, beaming happily.
To those who argue that legalizing organ sales would help the poor, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, founder of Organ Watch, pointedly replies: "Perhaps we should look for better ways of helping the destitute than dismantling them."
No doubt we should, but we don't. Our assistance to the poor is woefully inadequate and leaves more than a billion people living in extreme poverty.
In an ideal world, there would be no destitute people, and there would be enough altruistic donors so that no one would die while waiting to receive a kidney. But we must make policies for the real world, not an ideal one.
Could a legal market in kidneys be regulated to ensure that sellers were fully informed about what they were doing, including the risks to their health?
(The author is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.www.project-syndicate.org.)
Last year, Singapore retail magnate Tang Wee Sung was sentenced to one day in jail for agreeing to buy a kidney illegally. He subsequently received a kidney from the body of an executed murderer - which, though legal, is arguably more ethically dubious than buying a kidney, since it creates an incentive for convicting and executing those accused of capital crimes.
Now, Singapore has legalized payments to organ donors. Officially, these payments are only for reimbursement of costs; payment of an amount that is an "undue inducement" remains prohibited. But what constitutes "undue inducement" is left vague.
Both these developments raise again the question as to whether selling organs should be a crime at all. In the United States alone, 100,000 people seek an organ transplant each year, but only 23,000 are successful. Some 6,000 people die before receiving an organ.
Although buying and selling human organs is illegal almost everywhere, the World Health Organization estimates that worldwide about 10 percent of all kidneys transplanted are bought on the black market. The most common objection to organ trading is that it exploits the poor. That view received support from a 2002 study of 350 Indians who illegally sold a kidney.
Most told researchers they were motivated by a desire to pay off their debts but, six years later, three-quarters of them were still in debt, and regretted having sold their kidney.
Some free-market advocates reject the view that government should decide for individuals what body parts they can sell - hair, for instance, and in the US, sperm and eggs - and what they cannot sell.
When the television program "Taboo" covered the sale of body parts, it showed a slum dweller in Manila who sold his kidney so that he could buy a motorized tricycle taxi to provide income for his family. After the operation, the donor was shown driving around in his shiny new taxi, beaming happily.
To those who argue that legalizing organ sales would help the poor, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, founder of Organ Watch, pointedly replies: "Perhaps we should look for better ways of helping the destitute than dismantling them."
No doubt we should, but we don't. Our assistance to the poor is woefully inadequate and leaves more than a billion people living in extreme poverty.
In an ideal world, there would be no destitute people, and there would be enough altruistic donors so that no one would die while waiting to receive a kidney. But we must make policies for the real world, not an ideal one.
Could a legal market in kidneys be regulated to ensure that sellers were fully informed about what they were doing, including the risks to their health?
(The author is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.www.project-syndicate.org.)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
